Canadian teenagers launch Lego man to the stars (+video)

A duo of 17-year-olds from Toronto attached a Lego man to a weather balloon, along with several cameras and a GPS tracker, and launched it into the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Two teens from Toronto,Canada have launched ?Lego Man in Space? using a helium filled weather balloon and captured stunning video of the miniature toy figure back dropped by the beautiful curvature of Earth and the desolate blackness of space that?s become a worldwide YouTube sensation ? over 2 million hits !

Skip to next paragraph

17 year olds Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad lofted the tiny 2 inch tall Lego figure from a local Toronto soccer field up to a height of about 85,000 feet, or 16 miles (25 kilometers), where the 22 foot (7 m) diameter helium balloon burst in what is technically known as the stratosphere. The homemade styrofoam capsule ? equipped with two video cameras and four digital cameras (Canon) ? then parachuted back to Earth.

?We launched the project on January 7,? Mathew Ho told Universe Today.?

?After endless hours of hard work, we managed to capture stunning views of our atmosphere and put a ?Lego? man into near space!? said the ambitious teens who are 12th graders at the Agincourt Collegiate Institute.

The pair posted a YouTube video (below) documenting the entire voyage and some camera snapshots on their website on January 25.

Lego Man even snapped cool Moon shots ? look closely at the video and photo below.

"Lego Man in Space" ? The Video

The duo recounted the details of their sensational space tale of science on a shoestring for Canadian TV and newspapers.

?Upon launch we were very relieved. But we had a lot of anxiety on launch day because there were high winds when we were going up after all the hard work,? said Ho in a studio interview on Canadian TV (CTV).

?We were also scared because now we would have to retrieve it back after it came down,? Asad chimed in.

?We had no idea it would capture photos like that and would be so good,? said Ho. ?We were blown away when we saw them back home.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/wXud95AwMKo/Canadian-teenagers-launch-Lego-man-to-the-stars-video

merle haggard ladainian tomlinson apple announcement yu darvish pipa keystone xl sopa and pipa

China market: 2011 online gaming revenues over CNY41 billion

Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES, Taipei?[Monday 30 January 2012]

Operators of online gaming services in the China market generated total revenue of CNY41.38 billion (US$6.40 billion) in 2011, rising by 17.5% from 2010, according to China-based iResearch Consulting Group.

The total revenues for 2012 are projected at CNY46.48 billion, iResearch indicated.

China market: Leading online gaming services by revenues, 2011
Company	Share
Tencent	40.77%
NetEase	16.02%
Shanda	12.76%
Perfect World	7.01%
ChangYou (subsidiary of Sohu)	6.72%
Giant	4.35%
Gyyx.cn	2.78%
Tiancity	1.72%
NetDragon	1.69%
Kingsoft	1.59%

Source: iResearch, compiled by Digitimes, January 2012

Categories: Game, IA Software, Internet Systems

Tags: 2011 China market gaming online online game revenues

Source: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120129VL201.html

andrew luck love and hip hop 2012 nfl mock draft iowa caucus dick clark lemonade diet chris jericho

Sanctions to hit EU buyback firms: Iran oil chief (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) ? European companies owed oil by Iran could lose out if Tehran imposes a ban on crude exports to the European Union next week, the head of Iran's state oil company said on Saturday.

Iran's parliament is due to debate a bill on Sunday that would cut off oil supplies to the EU in a matter of days, in revenge for a decision last Monday by the 27 EU member states to stop importing crude from Iran as of July 1.

"Generally, the parties to incur damage from the EU's recent decision will be European companies with pending contracts with Iran," Ahmad Qalebani, head of the National Iranian Oil Co. told the ISNA news agency.

"The European companies will have to abide by the provisions of the buyback contracts," he said. "If they act otherwise, they will be the parties to incur the relevant losses and will subject the repatriation of their capital to problems."

By turning the sanctions back on the EU, Iranian lawmakers hope to deny Europe the six-month window it had planned to give those countries most dependent on Iranian oil - including some of the most economically fragile - time to adapt.

The EU banned imports of oil from Iran on Monday and imposed a number of other economic sanctions, joining the United States in a new round of measures aimed at deflecting Tehran's nuclear development programme.

Under buyback contracts, a common feature of the Iranian oil industry, investments in oil field projects are paid back in oil, often over many years.

Italy's Eni says it is owed $1.4-1.5 billion in oil for contracts in Iran dating from 2000 and 2001 and has been assured by EU policymakers its buyback contracts will not be part of the European embargo but the prospect of Iran acting first may put that into doubt.

The EU accounted for 25 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the third quarter of 2011.

(Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by David Stamp)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120128/bs_nm/us_iran_oil_sanctions

pepper spraying cop pepper spraying cop somaya reece padma lakshmi juelz santana juelz santana greg halman

Senegalese pop star Ndour tussles with police (AP)

DAKAR, Senegal ? An Associated Press reporter saw police tussle with international pop star Youssou Ndour, who was pushed back by police when he tried to enter a police station where a leading opposition figure is being detained.

Ndour had come on Saturday to the Criminal Investigation Division as part of a large crowd of opposition supporters who wanted to show their solidarity with Alioune Tine, a well-known human rights activist who is being questioned by police.

Tine was the organizer of a demonstration Friday that turned violent following the decision of Senegal's constitutional court to allow the country's leader to run for a third term. The legal body approved President Abdoulaye Wade's third term bid, even though critics say the constitution allows a maximum of two.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_en_ce/af_senegal_election

verlander verlander justin verlander pepper spraying cop pepper spraying cop somaya reece padma lakshmi

Newt Gingrich Takes A Backseat To Mitt Romney On The Florida Airwaves (ABC News)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192362553?client_source=feed&format=rss

alyssa campanella nbc dr phil squash paul krugman dr. phil dr. phil

World's longest lab experiment still going strong, via webcam

In 1927, a physics professor named Thomas Parnell launched an experiment on viscous liquids. 85 years later, we're still waiting for his results. It all began with a funnel, a beaker, and some melted tar pitch. Parnell, a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, was hoping to demonstrate that brittle tar pitch actually behaves as a liquid when kept at room temperature. To prove this, he melted some tar pitch, let it cool for three years, and placed it within the funnel, held over the beaker. The first drop rolled down the funnel eight years later. The second came nine years after that. By the time the third rolled around, Parnell had already passed away. Following his death, the experiment was shelved, quite literally, in a closet, before Professor John Mainstone revived it shortly after joining the University of Queensland in 1961. In 1975, Mainstone successfully lobbied the university to put the experiment on display, but he likely could've never imagined how large an audience it would ultimately have. Today, in fact, the experiment is on display 24 hours a day, via a dedicated webcam. It's been hailed as the world's longest running lab experiment, and it's available for gazing at the source link below. Mainstone expects the next drop to come down the pipeline sometime next year, but you probably shouldn't hold your breath. The last drop ran down the funnel in 2000. Unfortunately, it was never recorded on video, due to a very untimely camera malfunction.

World's longest lab experiment still going strong, via webcam originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink DVice  |  University of Queensland  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/27/worlds-longest-lab-experiment-still-going-strong-via-webcam/

jenelle evans jenelle evans jessica capshaw seattle times seattle times colbert super pac colbert super pac

Could a Balloon Fly in Outer Space?

Here?s the sort of crazy idea that animates our office conversation at Scientific American. It all started with my colleague Michael Moyer?s joke that a certain politician could build his moon base using a balloon: just capture the hot air and float all the way up. Ha ha, we all know that balloons don?t work in outer space.

But is that really true? Why couldn?t they?

The more I thought about it, the more confused I got, so let me float it as a trial balloon and see whether you can shoot it down. Ground rules: no weaselly appeal to ?feasibility? or ?practicality? allowed. You have to argue from pure physics.

As long as the balloon?s interior density is lower than ambient, it should rise?no matter how low the ambient pressure is. Drag force will limit the balloon?s ascent velocity, but shouldn?t stop it altogether and can be minimized by choosing a prolate rather than spherical shape.

As the balloon rises, it will expand in inverse proportion to the ambient pressure and, neglecting temperature, density. At launch, the interior and exterior pressure is equal, and the interior density is lower; during the ascent, the pressure remains equalized, so the interior density will?always be less than the ambient. Neglecting temperature is probably not a bad approximation: the absolute temperature will vary at most a couple of orders of magnitude, whereas the pressure and density fall off much more drastically, and in any event we can include a politician to regulate the temperature difference between interior and exterior.

The material tension would rise in proportion to radius. It has units of force, and the maximum possible force in nature, the Planck force, is 10⁴⁴ newtons, so the balloon could get bigger than the known universe before it absolutely has to pop. The balloon walls would become extremely thin and porous, but because of the scaling of area and volume, they should always remain able to confine the gas.

Bottom line: if you release a helium balloon on the ground, it should rise forever! It will float up until Earth?s atmosphere dovetails with the interplanetary medium, then float up and out of the solar system, then reach interstellar space and float out of the plane of the galaxy like the bubbles blown by supernova, and ultimately settle in one of the voids of large-scale cosmic structure.

Unless I?m missing something, it is a myth that balloons are inherently unable to work in space. The limit is set not by physics, but by trifling engineering problems such as material strength and permeability. Another caveat is that the laws of gas dynamics assume a continuum, an approximation that already fails in Earth?s upper atmosphere.

Now, someone, tell me what I?m missing.

Image credit: NASA/ARCADE/Roen Kelly

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=2ce44ebb1bfc8f87347e3cf8cdf62c36

government shutdown sofia vergara jacksonville jaguars jacksonville jaguars iraq war over iraq war over maurice jones drew